


all joy wants eternity

by rebuqi



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: But Not The Sort That Changes Things For The Better, Canon Compliant, Characters Stay Dead, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Emotionally-Mangled-Clinically-Depressed-But-Somehow-A-Functioning-Adult Kenobi, Everyone Has Issues, F/M, M/M, Manipulation, Nihilist Starter Pack, No Time Travel And No Rising From The Dead, OK Maybe Some Time Travel, Shit Stays Fucked, Starring Anakin Man-Child Skywalker, This Ain't Some Twice In A Lifetime Shit, Unusual Characterisation?, Your Favs Need Therapy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-15
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-04-20 19:59:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4800395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebuqi/pseuds/rebuqi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>title taken from zarathustra's roundelay in thus spoke zarathustra<br/> </p><p>anakin: what could possibly go wrong?<br/>obi-wan: no. no. <em>no.</em></p><p>please read the tags, understand what you are in for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> obi-wan: all those moments will be lost in time, like [coughs] tears in rain. time to die.
> 
> that's it, that's the whole chapter.

“i’ve been waiting for you, obi-wan, we meet again at last.” there is a not-wholly unexpected calmness to the voice of his once-padawan, whether due to the implant, or simply time, it is difficult to say. regardless, obi-wan finds it rather comical – along with everything else: the fact this space-station just obliterated a planet with a _giant laser_ ; the lingering smell of perspiration presumably from a stormtrooper with a suit malfunction. even the tall dark figure, half man half thing, clad in armour of black steel designed with an intention to intimidate, one too obvious that it ends up self-defeating. a cliché, the effectiveness of which very much hinges on the beholder’s culture and physiology such that to some he may appear or as well be from head to toe the loveliest shade of pink.

“the circle is now complete, when i left you i was but a learner, now i am the master.”

obi-wan struggles to keep a straight face: the burlesque gravity of it all! yet there is an importance to this theatrics they both understand, “only a master of evil, darth.”

he calls him darth, a title used by countless bygone sith lords, as if the name vader alone marks this collection of undead flesh and soulless things as anything more than a vision of evil personified - that evoking it would give weight to phantom limbs, inflate broken lungs with ashes till a mutilated body becomes so heavy it would pull through time and space memories of old wounds to drown whomever dares remember.

it would mean this is a man, a man who was on fire on a planet where everything burned.

and now it’s finally time for a ghost to die after nineteen years of haunting a body that has felt like too much skin ever since obi-wan watched skin blacken, eaten away by flame on a face he once knew more intimately than his own.

in a way, he supposes, his exile too had been a kind of fire.

you’re going to be the death of me, he used to say, half prophetic half oblivious to its unequivocal truth. a part of him always knew, not of where or how, just that one day he would die by the hands that asked for a storm while he kept busy grounding lightning in his chest, pretending not to notice the current on his tongue. so for many years, obi-wan was thankful for _not yet_ , then for many more, he prayed for _soon_ , and as he strikes at the man torn to pieces in the tempest that brewed over a half-decade of fruitless wanting in perfect irony, the universe starts to chant - a crescendo of _now_. what am i to do, obi-wan thinks, but to keep dancing to its tune?

the question is rhetorical, though misleading in that, mock fatalism aside, obi-wan is not unaware of the many alternatives: he can give this man the skywalker twins; he can promise to help him defeat the emperor; he can tell the truth, which is “i love you, i don’t know why i’m doing this.” there is nothing to stop him - except the ease with which all of it can be done. for it is one thing to suffer, and quite another to have suffered, then admit how easy it was for things to have gone differently. for obi-wan to see a face where he now sees a thing of sharp edges and obsidian - like the black shore that devoured what he too had hungered for, but was always too afraid. of what, he no longer remembers.

the chant begins to descend into a cacophony.

“your powers are weak, old man.” 

“you can’t win, darth. if you strike me down, i shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”

 _there_ , one voice is heard above the rest.

“you should not have come back.”

obi-wan moves to the spot, sees luke. he smiles, raises his weapon like a stick of incense to offer to some ancient god, and drops his guard.

_thus._

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> trust me he said, it'll be fun he said...

just as obi-wan kenobi dissolves into the cosmic soup, vader senses an object that until now has been overshadowed by the presence of his old master. under the pile of jedi robes, something carries more of obi-wan’s signature than even his lightsaber – a small pebble embedded with tiny shards of willemite from a place the sith lord has almost forgotten…

* * *

 

"anakin, what are you doing?" he knows that look, and seldom likes what follows.

"you said it yourself," anakin turns to him with more mischief in his eyes than obi-wan cares to acknowledge, "we deserve a break."

"and you suggest we find it on the other side of that wormhole." one hand on his chin with elbow resting in the palm of the other, obi-wan says enunciating every syllable. how he manages to make a simple suggestion sound quite so ludicrous remains forever a mystery to anakin.

ignoring the obvious, yet perfectly deniable ridicule, anakin nods with unabated excitement. "it'll be fun," he says seemingly under the delusion that it is all the convincing anyone should need.

"venturing into an uncharted wormhole and possibly dying in some unknown region of space is hardly my..." anakin interrupts obi-wan by pressing a gloved finger on his lips, pleased with the barely detectable quiver he feels upon contact. "trust me," he implores.

at first stunned by the intimacy of anakin’s touch, obi-wan bats away his prosthetic hand with more force than intended earning an exaggerated “ouch.”

“you should know this is going in my mission report,” anakin says nursing his hand with feigned concentration, “master kenobi striking former padawan.”

obi-wan can’t help but smile at this display, “that wasn’t even your real arm.”

“you don’t know what it can or cannot feel!” anakin rebuts.

“and since when is this a mission?”

“since,” anakin pauses for a second, then continues as if it cannot possibly be more apparent, “this wormhole may just give the republic the edge it needs to regain control of the sector.”

well, he’s not wrong, obi-wan thinks, regardless of how over-optimistically anakin presents the case, there is the possibility this may prove useful. however, they simply do not have the time or the resources for such an expedition, he reasons, “while that may be, we have orders to return to the temple. besides, such a mission would not require the expertise of two jedi. we’ll give these coordinates to the council once we arrive on coruscant, and let the council decide whether it is worth investigating, agreed?”

"argh, fine," anakin grumbles.

for a while, there is silence in the cockpit as obi-wan stares into space, a thumb casually tracing his lips replicating the pressure of the earlier touch - until he notices the anomaly growing bigger, “anakin, do my eyes deceive me, or are we still moving towards it?”

“towards what?”

“ _it_ ,” finger against transparisteel, obi-wan points pointlessly at something that now stretches across opposite ends of the viewport, this time, receiving no response except the sudden acceleration of their shuttle. _why do i bother?_ rubbing his temples, obi-wan slumps back into his seat and sighs.

“you must learn to release your anxiety and frustration into the force, young one,” anakin teases with his best impression of the older jedi, then turns to see obi-wan eyes closed floating cross-legged above his seat actually trying to meditate, “relax, obi-wan, it’s just a quick detour to see what’s on the other end. we'll arrive safely on coruscant maybe a few hours behind schedule, i promise.”

“and if we die, perhaps ahsoka will be trained by someone wiser,” obi-wan strokes his beard contemplating the possibility, “master fisto has always been fond of her, and with nahdar now a jedi knight…”

“hey! that hurts.” anakin protests, though he is relieved the man no longer seems upset, then staring intently ahead he adds, “besides, there is nothing i wouldn't do to save you for the hundredth time. if i die, you'll be there to take care of ahsoka.”

too staring intently at nothing obi-wan retorts, “i’m not sure if either of you realises just how alike you two are. one skywalker had been quite enough for me, to train another would indeed be one too many for a single lifetime, so you better not…” a jolt interrupts him as the shuttle exits the wormhole, and the cockpit is filled with blinding light.

“master?” anakin quickly shields his eyes, "i can't see a damn thing." 

“it appears we’ve reached the other side.” obi-wan fumbles for the control to lower the ablative heat shield over the viewport. the shuttle soon begins shaking violently. its hull screeches as if under enormous pressure. 

as soon as he is able, anakin starts assessing the damage their vessel has sustained, "navigation's gone. side thrusters offline. more importantly, _what - is_  -  _that_?" 

“that, i believe, is a giant quasar.” obi-wan continues after a brief pause, “my guess is we exited the wormhole right on the edge of the accretion disk of a supermassive black hole deep inside a galactic core, and we are most certainly going to die.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> contains reference to matthew stover's rots novelisation, but you don't need to have read it.

as screens go dark, anakin's role in the cockpit becomes chiefly decorative.

“radiation must have fried our sennsorrs.” the turbulence gives obi-wan an uneven vibrato, “i’mmm onlyy surprised they lasted this long.”

“i sincerely hope how much you are not freaking out right now means you already have a plann for getting us out of here,” the present situation demands action, not patience, anakin decides, which is never in short supply anyway for obi-wan positively exudes it.

he turns to see his former master indeed eerily at ease. he's always been impressed and disconcerted by obi-wan’s poise even as everything goes to hell, or in this case, a supermassive black hole. though in some cultures the distinction is meaningless, obi-wan would note. 

while others may find the jedi master’s apparent fortitude reassuring, anakin has come to suspect obi-wan’s calm isn’t anchored on confidence or faith in the force, but a sort of apathy. a paragon of compassion and altruism, at times the man seems oddly disconnected. the rush of adrenaline, fight-or-flight, these are things anakin understands - organic responses to a perceived threat, indicative of life. then there's obi-wan - physiology overridden, millions of years of evolution simply ignored. it is a fearsome quality, one that makes him at times more alien to anakin than any non-human the young jedi has encountered. 

“the plan, my friend, is to submit to the will of the forrrce annnd embrace oblivion gracefully,” obi-wan gives a deadpan reply, himself unsure if it's meant only as a joke. there _is_ an unnerving appeal to the idea of them crushed into a single string of eternal atoms falling for aeons towards mystery. he can think of worse ways to go. 

death by sarlacc for example - being digested conscious and immobilised over a thousand years doesn't sound quite as poetic _._  but what obi-wan dreads most is to die by fire. recurring nightmares have acquainted him all too well with its agony - and the smell. the smell!

"ok... how 'bout a plan b?" anakin asks, now notably nervous. "the hero with no fear" is after all lazy marketing - lazy, yet effective despite heroism by definition cannot manifest in the absence of fear, or it would be ascribed all too easily to fools and hotheads. but if bravery is indeed simply a state of being unafraid, then the masses have just as comfortably overlooked the redundancy as otherwise the contradiction. 

the truth is the young jedi general fears many things: failure, irrelevance, abandonment... to him, the possibility of each indicates some cosmological error he must rectify before the universe strays into a _incorrect_ future. and as far as anakin can tell, he's good at fixing things, be it a droid, a hyperdrive or a tactical disadvantage. this is, however, precisely what worries obi-wan for he knows sometimes to fix, one must risk irreparably breaking. and he is afraid anakin will one day risk too much in his sometimes messy work-arounds.

or he used to be, before they were tossed into the fiery center of the galaxy, and are _most certainly going to die_. 

he remembers talking about death once, when years ago on a minor mission they passed a frigid black dwarf.

a dead star.

"stars can die—?" anakin had asked, a boy then.

"everything dies. in time, even stars burn out," as he said this, the universe seemed to slow. the force throbbed painfully across his every synapse overwhelming his senses. such clarity, but without focus. this, after all, was only the force telling him: _pay attention, this is important_. it did not tell him why 'this' was important, or even specify what 'this' was, and he didn't care. all he remembers now is how he could sense molecules moving as his voice rippled throughout the confines of the shuttle stoic as ever, no prophecy, no hidden truth, just the feeling that  _there was something wrong with him_.

nay, it was more than a feeling, he knew. and when he saw _it_  in his young padawan's eyes, he was sure the boy knew too. 

 _it_ had taken the shape of his pupil, a dark, ancient circle that stared back at him and saw the same  _something_ , unlike he,  _it_ had a name for. _it_ understood that _something_ more than he could ever wish to understand.

 _it_ understood everything. _it_ knew everything.

he didn't stop, he doesn't remember wanting to, "this is why jedi form no attachments: all things pass." 

part of him wanted to laugh at the boy, this chosen one, this midichlorian-count-off-the-chart prodigy who looked then like any average child, dumb and afraid. of course, he felt guilty. for enjoying this, for wishing for a moment that qui-gon was wrong, and had died for nothing. then a sense of failure. failure as a jedi, a teacher.  _failure as a son._  which only made him want to laugh more. he wonders if, in that moment, he let the faintest suggestion of a grin creep across his face as he fed on a child's fear. 

but there is no time to recollect for there _it_ is again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there was actually a lot more i wanted to include in this chapter, but i quite desperately needed that feeling of actually finishing something, so i apologise if it ended really abruptly. hopefully the next will be better.


End file.
